Before and After
by YellowRosesAndHearts
Summary: "He smells a hint of vanilla from her face and hands, feels the warmth radiating from her skin, and, for the first time tonight, feels profound relief that he is alive." L/E. two-shot.


_**So I had written most of this Lanie patches up Esposito fic before knockdown, actually back in November. And then knockdown happened, and I decided to do a before and after thing—how Lanie reacts to Esposito being in danger before they're together, and how she reacts after. So this first chapter takes place during their "courtship," if you will. The second chapter will be the post-ep to knockdown. Expect that in four or five days.**_

_**Also, this will get explained later, but if you want to know the scenario to this chap up front—Espo goes into a house without backup to save a victim, and gets grazed in the neck by a bullet. He asks Lanie to patch him up in lieu of going to the ER, and she obliges. Sorry about the long A/N.**_

"Lookin' good as always today, Doc."

Esposito is sitting on his desk after dark, his legs hanging jauntily. The squad room is empty and half-dark, the blinds in the windows drawn up, and full moon leaking into the room. Montgomery is still just outside the precinct, giving a press conference—Beckett and Ryan are still taking statements from witnesses at the crime scene. Castle is upstate for a wedding, but he has evidently heard about what has happened, because he has sent Esposito a text which reads, _Please tell me you're not dead._

In front of him, Lanie rummages through a first aid kit for antiseptic and gauze. A smile briefly flickers across her face, and she rolls her eyes at him.

"You almost just got your dumb ass _killed_, Esposito, and that's what you notice?"

"I always notice a beautiful woman." He grins at her—his smile is cheeky, irreverent.

Lanie puts up one finger. "Stop. Don't think you're gonna flatter your way out of this. If I decide you need to go to the hospital, that's where you're goin'. No discussion."

"You sending me to the ER would just be overkill. Do you _want _to waste perfectly good taxpayer dollars?"

She plants one hand on her hip. "Maybe. So don't push me, Detective, 'cause God knows I shoulda just dumped you off in the ambulance and never looked back."

"So why didn't you?" He smiles at her, and then flinches at the pain it shoots through the wound in his neck.

Lanie considers for a moment. "You said 'please.'" She pours a bit of the antiseptic on a piece of paper towel, and moves closer to him with her hand raised.

"Now, if you need stitches, you really are gonna have to go to the hospital."

"You don't have anything to stich me up?"

"I have that. I just don't have novacaine to numb you."

Esposito shakes his head reprovingly. "I'd have thought you had everything, Doc. I'm disappointed in you."

He is just saying that to rankle her, and he is sure she knows that, but she places a hand on her hip and faces him down anyway. "The people I stitch up are dead already, Detective. They don't tend to complain too much about the pain."

They smile briefly at each other, eyes warm. They've always been friends. They have too much in common not to be—they are both instinctive, intuitive, witty. Sometimes when he's finished chatting with Lanie he will feel mentally worn out, having exhausted every corner of his wit to keep up with her, but he'll still be amped up, energized. And yet even beyond all that, he finds her presence comforting. They just get along. They make each other laugh. They always have.

Lanie takes another step forward, reaches out her hand, and gently dabs at the flesh wound on his neck. It stings, and he takes in a sharp breath.

She draws back. "Did I hurt you?"

He shakes his head. "Nah." With him sitting on the desk and her standing, she is a little bit taller than he is. He looks up at her—her hand is still frozen. He nods, giving her permission to go on.

Lanie resumes dabbing at the cut on his neck. Her hands are gentle, more than he'd expect them to be, considering that she admittedly spends her days working with dead people, who can't feel anything. He watches as her eyes narrow, focusing intently, chewing her lip. He smells a hint of vanilla from her face and hands, feels the warmth radiating from her skin, and, for the first time tonight, feels profound relief that he is _alive._ Alive, and he is still young and strong and aware. He can still hear the light clicking of the second hand on his watch, and Lanie's swift, shallow breaths. He can feel the softness of her skin, as her knuckles rest against his collar bone. Esposito lets his eyes fall shut, his pulse beating steadily, enjoying the warmth of Lanie's nearness, relieved with each deeply-drawn breath.

After a few minutes, Lanie has cleaned off his wound, and gently prods it with the tips of her fingers. He keeps his eyes shut. She moves closer to inspect it—he can feel the coolness of her breath against his skin. He opens his eyes, then, and finds her closer somehow than he expected. She looks up at him—her large dark eyes are soulful and still. They flicker down to his mouth and then guiltily back up, and he swallows a lump in his throat. He can almost hear her voice in his head, telling him that this is neither the time, nor the place—she is a big one for times and places—and he looks away from her, off into the distance.

"So what's the verdict, Doc?"

Lanie collects herself quickly, she always has. Any thoughts that she might have just had are quickly wiped from her face, and her voice is cheerful and professional. "You don't need stitches. I'll bandage this baby up, and you'll be good to go."

"See, I told you. Everyone's been making this into such a big deal—"

"Well, usually when someone gets shot in the neck, they don't live to talk about it," Lanie snaps. There is some of her usual good-natured sarcasm in there, but there is also an impatience, an anger, that he can't quite place.

"I didn't get shot, Lanie. I got _grazed._" His eyes are bright and impertinent.

"Boy, I will _cut you."_

Esposito laughs. "Violent threats. Anyone would think you liked me a little bit, Doc. You were worried."

She stamps her foot in mock annoyance. "I was not worried about you. I was worried about me. If you croaked, Ryan might actually ask _me_ to play Madden."

"You were surprisingly good at it," Esposito replies, chuckling at the memory.

They've been hanging out more over the past several months. With Castle gone over the summer, the entire precinct seemed morose—and Lanie, always so bright and so funny—was a welcome distraction. A few weeks before, when Esposito was forced to go to a Department party in Beckett's place, he'd brought Lanie along. There had been conversation, laughter, and then, dancing to an old Patti Labelle song, he had looked down at her and said simply, "We should go out." She had laughed, eyes sparkling, and replied, "You're gonna have to try harder than that."

In front of him now, Lanie shrugs her shoulders. Her understanding of football was another piece of her that he hadn't expected. "Doesn't mean I wanna be the new Ernie to Ryan's Bert," she says.

"Below the belt, Parrish." He scoots closer to her as she begins to measure out gauze to spread over the wound on his neck. "And anyway, you've been denyin' you love me for years. Isn't this the part in the movies when you swoop in on me in an urgent, frenzied, passionate heat, and—"

"—An 'urgent, frenzied, passionate heat'? You been memorizing the sex scenes in Castle's books again?"

He grins irreverently. "Don't change the subject. Admit it. You're shaken up because I almost died before you had the chance to have your way with me."

"Yes, you know, I think you're right, Javier. Something about you running into a suspects house—without back-up—and almost getting your stupid ass _killed—_that's doin' it for me." She takes one step toward him, her dark eyes gleaming wickedly, running the tip of her pointer finger along the buttons of his shirt. She bites her lip, and he stares. "It gets me hot."

"Really?" He asks, before he can stop himself.

Lanie guffaws. "No. Not really." She backs off, and shakes her head at him. "God, you're too easy."

He rolls his head back, laughing. "You're _killing_ me." After a moment with his head bent backward, he feels a sharp pain in the cut on his neck, and quickly sets his head straight again. The amusement in Lanie's eyes fades quickly, and she moves close to him again, gently rubbing her fingers against his neck and sighing.

"This was so close, Detective," she almost whispers, and he sees that her hands are trembling lightly. It's nothing too overt—nothing the untrained eye would notice. But for Lanie, always so unflappable, any chink in her armor is jarring.

Esposito lightly, affectionately, kicks her in the shin. He sees her roll her eyes, and he says, softly, "I wasn't hurt, Doc. I'm just fine."

Lanie briefly shuts her eyes, taking in a breath, before opening them again. "Tell me how it happened."

"Beckett didn't tell you?"

"She did. I'm hopin' it'll sound less stupid and reckless coming from you."

"Probably won't." His legs stop kicking, he looks up at her. Her eyes are wide, her gaze steady. She is waiting, and he nods his head.

"You know the story. I was drivin' around Brooklyn, looking for our kidnap victim's ex-boyfriend. Guy was supposed to be playin' basketball somewhere nearby. Figured I could get a few questions in."

"And why were you alone, exactly?" There is a note of exasperation in her voice.

"Beckett and Ryan were chasing a lead in Manhattan. Castle was leavin' to drive upstate. I figured, I'm a big boy, I could go alone."

"So I'm outside his house, and I swear I can hear- I don't know—_crying_ coming from his basement. And I remember, earlier, talkin' to the vic's mother, and promising her I'd get this guy. She was, uh—" He breaks off, swallows hard. "She reminded me of my grandmother. She was in my head. So I think—I can call for back-up, wait four minutes, and maybe everything will be alright. But if it's not—if, in those four minutes, something happens—" He breaks off again. "So I go in."

"You go in." She shakes her head in irritation, but her hand is resting gently on his shoulder. "You coulda _died,_ Esposito. You get that? You could be dead right now. You could be—" She stops to collect her breath. "I get it, Detective, I do. You're like Beckett. Wanna save the world. It's admirable, you know? It really is. But you _can't._ You gotta be smart."

Lanie straightens up. "So if I ever—_ever—_hear you did some dumb stuff like that again—even with the best intentions—dealin' with Beckett's gonna feel like a goddamned _picnic,_ you got that?"

"I don't know, Lanie," he replies cheerfully. "I don't know if you've heard, but they've been lettin' Beckett carry a gun these days."

"And I have an entire morgue full of razor-sharp surgical instruments, and, as you've pointed out, no anesthesia. So I guess it really comes down to—how would you rather die?"

He raises his hands in mock surrender. "Fair point."

Lanie resumes tending to the cut on his neck—she gently places a thick cotton swab against it with one hand, and tapes it down with the other. He notes the way she bites her lip in concentration—the way her eyebrows furrow. She is probably the least made-up her has ever seen her—she isn't wearing any jewelry, her hair is tucked haphazardly behind her ears, she is wearing simple jeans, and a fitted green sweater. She is dressed for an evening on the couch, eating popcorn and watching television, and that makes the moment more intimate, somehow.

When she finishes, she steps back to admire her handiwork. "All better," she says tenderly, her voice soft. She smiles brightly at him, and he forgets himself for a moment.

"You _are_ a really beautiful woman, Lanie," he says, his voice steady, and it has the effect of dropping a heavy stone into a calm pond. Her eyes briefly widen, her breath catches—he sees her mouth involuntarily soften—and then she shakes her head ruefully, either at him or at herself.

"You're only sayin' that because you just came within an inch of your life," she replies, but her voice is shaky. "I could be Castle in drag, and you'd be sayin' the same thing."

"Castle in drag, huh? Don't project your fantasies onto me. Just because that's what gets you all hot and bothered..."

"Bite me."

"I'd be happy to."

She swats him in the shoulder. "Okay, your fine," she says, referring to his injury.

"You think I'm _fine_?" Esposito jokes, jumping down from the desk. He is close enough to feel the light scratch of her sweater on the back of his wrist. "I'm flattered, Doc." He raises his eyebrow. "You're fine, too."

She playfully pushed him backwards. "So damned arrogant," she says, but she's smiling. "It's time for me to go home." She looks up at him. "You need a ride?"

"A _ride_? Is that code for—"

"Keep dreamin'."

"I can drive."

"You sure? Cause patchin' you up would be kinda counterproductive if you're just gonna go out and crash into a tree or something."

"I'll manage." He places a hand at her shoulder, her hair sweeping down over his knuckles. He leans close to her, looks into her eyes, and has the satisfaction of seeing her breath catch. "Thanks, Lain."

She tilts her head fetchingly to one side. "Goodnight, Detective."

"Until tomorrow."

"Until tomorrow?"

"Castle says it. I like it, it's—optimistic."

Lanie chuckles. "Optimism from the man who came within a centimeter of the ER today. Ironic."

Esposito leads her to the door, his hand placed gently at the small of her back. Lanie stops short, and looks up at him. "Just don't do anything to get yourself killed between now and tomorrow, okay?"

And there it is: concern. For Lanie, who never wants to show concern to him, or affection, either, it makes him smile. He bends down, and kisses her on the cheek. She is warm, soft, and he thinks that he _will_ try harder to make her his, as cheesy as that sounds in his own head.

"Yes, ma'am."


End file.
